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Friday, 10 April 2015

JUST IN: INEC SHIFTS ELECTION IN EIGHT BAYELSA CONSTITUENCIES

JUST IN: INEC SHIFTS ELECTION IN EIGHT BAYELSA CONSTITUENCIES

The Independent National Electoral Commission has postponed the State
House of Assembly election in eight of the 24 constituencies of Bayelsa
State. The State Resident Electoral Commissioner , Mr. Baritor Kpagih,
said in a statement on Friday that the elections for the affected
constituencies would hold on Saturday, April 18, 2015. The affected
councils are:

Kpagih said however that the election would hold as scheduled in the
rest 16 constituencies on Saturday. Curiously, the REC was silent on the
reason for the decision to postpone the election by one week. He simply
stated that the election was shifted because of the position of
stakeholders that election should not hold ‘without full complements of
the ballot papers.’

He said, “Following the stand of the
stakeholders that no election should take place in the State without
full complement of ballot papers, having regard to the total PVC
distributed, the State House of Assembly election slated for Saturday,
the 11th of April, 2015, in Bayelsa State has been rescheduled to
Saturday the 18th day of April, 2015 in the following constituencies…”

It was however revealed that the political parties and their candidates
insisted on the postponement of the election because of serious
discrepancies in the ballot papers for the constituencies. It was
further gathered that the number of ballot papers sent to the
constituencies was inadequate.

For instance, INEC was said to
have sent only 13,000 ballot papers out 27000 to Southern Ijaw
Constituency, thereby creating a short fall of 14,000 ballot papers for
the election.

Also, only 5000 ballot papers were available at
the headquarters of the Ekeremor Constituency 3, for the election that
was billed to be conducted with 15,000 ballot papers. Already, there was
mounting suspicion that there could be a covert plan to rig the
election even before it’s conduct on Saturday.
The same
situation which ignited suspicion in the various political parties, was
repeated in the rest seven affected constituencies.

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Again,
in keeping with my stated principle of promising less and delivering
more, I, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, in breaking with the past have in the
first budget presented while I am president allocated the lion's share
of N933. 480 billion to education. This is 3 times what was allocated to
the next highest sector, defence, at N313. 769 billion. GEJ